


passed around whiskey, fire, and the steps to heaven

by Eissel



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alcohol, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Ishbal | Ishval, Ishval Civil War, Light Angst, Minor Character Death, Minor Original Character(s), Non-Chronological, Period-Typical Racism, Religious Discussion, Xingese Roy Mustang, Yet Another Man's Battlefield
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-28
Updated: 2020-02-28
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:54:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22943620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eissel/pseuds/Eissel
Summary: “Welcome to hell.” The boy says, a smile on thin lips. “Careful where you step.”Maes nods, Riza is nowhere to be found, and the supplies are half-buried in the sand.A gunshot rings out and neither of them take cover.Roy watches them joke around in the aftermath, stunned.The year is 1908.
Relationships: Heathcliff Erbe & Roy Mustang & Maes Hughes, Maes Hughes & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye & Maes Hughes & Roy Mustang, Riza Hawkeye/Roy Mustang
Comments: 5
Kudos: 106





	passed around whiskey, fire, and the steps to heaven

“Welcome to hell.” The boy says, a smile on thin lips. “Careful where you step.”

Maes nods, Riza is nowhere to be found, and the supplies are half-buried in the sand.

A gunshot rings out and neither of them take cover.

Roy watches them joke around in the aftermath, stunned.

The year is 1908.

* * *

But he’d be lying if he said that that was where the story started.

* * *

The year is 1899. Turn of the century.

Roy doesn’t so much _sign up_ for recruitment as be _pressured_ into it. 

The recruiter is a tall, built man (and it says a lot that Roy’s already noting pressure points rather oohing and awing over the shitty BAR the man shows off to the Bandow boys), and it’s obvious as all hell that he doesn’t like Roy.

Not because he knows him or anything.

But because Roy’s skinny, and pale, and has dark, almond shaped eyes. 

Because Roy’s all of that and proud, **_and_ **an alchemist. 

But he has a job to do, and he drops into the spiel about serving your country and protecting your loved ones. And maybe it speaks to his nature that the first person to come to mind is little (not so little) Riza Hawkeye, the girl in the Big Hawkeye Manor, all shut up like a ghost.

Because maybe she wasn’t related to him, but Aunt Chris and the girls could take care of themselves, and Riza had no one. Just a boy who was always half-cocked in everything he did and a madman for a father.

(And maybe part of the resonation is because he _does_ love Amestris, even if the people are surly and xenophobic because at least they won’t try to _actively_ murder him in his sleep, unlike his mother’s homeland. He wants to keep the only home he’s ever known safe. And later maybe he will do worse for lesser motive, but at the moment, this is just a simple innocent desire. 

For the moment.)

And so he considers it, and is about to say his decision when-

“Of course the little chink won’t actually go for it! He’s too _delicate,_ and anyways, you don’t wanna ruin a good gun by giving it to some yellow skin coward.” 

And he’ll never know what he was actually going to say, because he snatches the recruitment papers from the man and furiously starts signing.

(He never notices the wry smiles the boys shoot each other when he shoves the paperwork back. Already money starts to switch hands, and people note down bets as to when the slant eyed, little half-bred chink boy will come limping back into Bandow, a stutter to his words and gait.

The most charitable bet in his favor is 4 months. )

* * *

He realizes later what he’s done when he tells Riza, and she lets a plate slip.

The shattering is deafening, not in the least because they are both _terrified_ of Berthold Hawkeye.

“I’ll repair it.”

“Okay.” She whispers. They aren’t talking about the plate. 

When they go upstairs, Roy sneaks a look in the bathroom mirror. 

He is still black haired, pale skinned, almond eyed Roy Kin-Hei Seong-Mustang. 

But for some reason, he felt as though that boy was dead. 

(Maybe it was the way his hand shook when he wrote his name down in neat block letters, a first and a last only. Roy, then Mustang. Maybe it was the way it felt like spitting on his mother's grave when he paused and allowed himself a moment to pen down the now missing names, but didn't.)

* * *

Later, in the Academy, when he meets Maes and Heathcliff, he asks them why they are there, in the Academy, working to become soldiers. 

Their ~~answers~~ goals felt so much more noble than his own. 

* * *

Berthold Hawkeye is dead.

Riza Hawkeye is branded with her father’s research.

Roy Kin-Hei Seong-Mustang throws up in the kitchen sink and refuses to touch anything related to alchemy for a week straight.

* * *

“I remember back in Daliha when an Ishvalan sniper shot at me ‘nd Garand. He didn’t hit us, but we had our heads out wide open! Surprised neither of us died.”

“I was there too Hughes, I remember this.” Roy groused. “Let me sleep.”

“You were? When was this again...”

“1908. The same year I _arrived_ remember?” Hughes shakes his head like he was trying to get rid of the sleepiness threatening to consume him and shove him into the realm of temporary death.

“Really? Huh? I don’t recall.” Well, that was obvious. But Roy’s used to it. He blends into the background as much as he can nowadays, mostly because he doesn’t want to deal with seeing people shy (run) away from him as he approaches.

But also because it means he dosen’t have to deal with the people that want to _use_ him. 

(On his paperwork it lists him as matériel. Matériel, like the artillery guns Saint-Chamond so loves, matériel like Riza’s preferred Mauser BAR, matériel because he is a human **_weapon_ **.)

* * *

Colonel Springfield is another Commanding Officer in a line of Commanding Officers, tall and straight backed, sandy, windswept hair paired with dark brown eyes. 

Typical Eastern looks, even if he does hail from Central, and maybe that was why he was even out here on the field in the first place. He’s all smiles and praises; _I’ve heard a lot about you Mustang,_ He says as he pours Roy a drink, and he even manages to hide his disdain at seeing that Roy Mustang is _actually_ a half-Xingese mixed boy playing at the part of a man. _Your ability saves lives on the battlefield, the men love you._

All he can think about are the dark, rough, sand hewn faces that disappear in fire. He takes walks in the desolate areas after sometimes. 

Corpses, not in the traditional sense, litter the streets. Corpses of buildings, and bones that are in approximate human forms. Red eyes that watch him from over the dunes, red eyes that remember when Ishval was called the Graveyard of Nations and could repel any attack. 

_Your ability saves lives on the battlefield._ Amestrian, not Ishvalan lives, and that’s how it is. 

There are other COs too, Lt. Colonel Haubitze is a short, squat man, all dark hair and beady eyes, and he’s far more threat than compliment. Roy can at least appreciate his honesty. _Listen here Mustang, I don’t care that you’re the Brass’ golden boy, you get any of my men caught up in your alchemical bullshit, I will gut you and leave you out to die._

Then there’s the types like Major Audace, who flirt with neutrality, abusing both threats and compliments whenever it suited them. He sees him with Kimblee a lot, probably because Kimblee doesn’t need any convincing to murder. But sometimes Audace walks up to him, even when he’s with Marcoh or another research alchemist, and tries to build a rapport with him.

It’s like he’s a child, unsure of what toy he wants to play with next. _You’re not like a lot of the other alchemists Mustang, always going on and on about their achievements, trying to suck up to their COs to get out of having to go out to the frontlines._

_Who are you to talk about sucking up?_ He thinks but does not say. “Thank you.” He says, and it tastes like ash in his mouth. He inclines his head a little, and leaves. 

He (always) finds Hughes in their shared tent, and he kneels by his own paper-stuffed mattress in stiff zhengzuo. Then he realizes that someone is there with them. 

It’s the boy from his first week in Ishval, the one who had nearly been shot alongside Hughes and had laughed it off later. He’s sitting on Hughes’ thin mattress with him, and they’d clearly been talking when he had walked in. He doesn’t know how he could’ve missed his presence.

“Sorry.” He says awkwardly. 

“It’s no problem. So you’re the good Major, Mustang, right?” He nods, and ignores the uncomfortable feeling of _not knowing the man’s name._ He knows Hughes has told it to him before… But he can’t remember. “Hughes has told me a lot about you. I’m Laurens Garand, in Quelle Company.”

Laurens is blonde and green-eyed, and is wicked with a knife. 

He throws one at the practice targets he and Hughes had set up, and it strikes bullseye. 

It flies, straight and true, never wavering an inch. Just like Laurens, just like Hughes, just like Heathcliff, just like Riza. 

( ** _Un-_ **like Roy, who is unsure of who he was and what he’s doing, of who he should be and what he should be doing.) 

* * *

_“I got to Ishval in 1908, just like you Major. I got here in March though.”_

It is August, and Riza tells him of a blond, green-eyed boy who was good with knives who was KIA the day before. 

“He was a decent sniper. I have a feeling he didn’t really like guns though. He was toying around with the service knife, just like how Hughes does whenever he’s bored.”

The year is 1908, the month is August, and Roy has exceeded expectations.

* * *

The year is not 1908.

He doesn’t know what date it is really, for all he knows (and cares), they’re entering a new century.

(It would be fitting, a new era for Amestris and all, and he doesn’t think that because the last turn was when he signed his life away and maybe a new turn would give it back, not at _all_ ) 

Central lays in ruins around him, no little amount of it his handiwork.

He “spots” (Riza spots) Al on the ground. With nothing to block the chill. 

So he shrugs off his coat, and hands it over to the Elrics’ alchemy teacher. (He thinks her last name is Curtis, he doesn’t remember her first, and he won’t embarrass himself by trying to guess at it)

“Won’t you stay?” Riza asks, and she is not referring to Al.

“I will not. We need to get to the hospital.”

* * *

For a moment, everything looks to be okay.

* * *

Roy should learn to stop lying to himself. He knows it doesn’t work, just holds off the inevitable until the worst moment possible.

Which, of course, is what happens this time around too. Who’d’ve guessed?

“I’m afraid that nothing short of a miracle can restore his sight.” He feels Riza stiffen beside him, hears his team all draw in a sharp little intake of breath.

“Thank you.” He says, with politeness he does not feel.

* * *

Resignation had never been an option before.

It wasn’t one now.

(His team is the best in the entire fucking military. They survived homunculi, being sent to war zones, survived a throwing a coup of ever-changing alliances whilst being under surveillance. They can deal with something as trivial as their Colonel being unable to see.)

* * *

The year is 1908 in his dreams, and everything is fire. 

The land, the people, himself. Everything is fire, and it is all his fault. 

“Need a drink Flame Alchemist?” Hughes asks, a bullet hole over his heart, glasses askew and smile fixed in place. 

“Sure.” He says. Anything to forget. 

“Coward.” A chorus hisses at him. He picks out Heathcliff’s voice out the best, and laughs. 

“Spare me your judgement Mr. Deserter.” He admonishes, and tips out a bit of the awful beer onto the burning sands. “Drink up.” He downs the rest of it himself, and tosses the bottle over his shoulder, where it burns like everything else.

* * *

The year is 1908, and Hughes tells him that he’s not so wrong, that all of this is for something good. Roy tells himself that too, and believes it less and less.

The year is 1908, and Roy lies on a stretcher, dead to the world as Knox and Hughes flit about him, taking off his layers and realizing that his watch had taken the bullet for him.

The year is 1908, and Heathcliff Erbe stands, braced against a wall, tears travelling down his face. 

The year is 1908, and Roy faces an old friend at the top of a bombed out building with charred corpses all around him. (This is all for a good cause, he tells himself.)

* * *

The year is 1909, and Roy and Maes and Riza sit on a hill together and mourn everything that was lost out here in sand, sand, and more sand. 

“Never goin’ to Heaven now.” Maes says, drunk off his ass on stolen Ishvalan spirits. 

(They are murderers and thieves and God only knew what else now.)

“Never were in the first place.” Roy says. “Besides, I don’t believe in God.”

(It’s more like Roy had never been going to Heaven, not after his mother had sat him by her knee and showed him how to make anything a weapon, not after his father had winked at him and poured a small bit of whiskey into his cup and told him it would make him a man.)

“Cheers to that.” Riza laughs, and it is unnatural here in the dunes where sand is all the eye can see and there is no human life for miles. 

“Same!” Maes hiccups. “Wha’ kinda god would up ‘n… up ‘n abandon his people like tha?” He topples onto the dunes, and Roy gently picks up the discarded bottle. 

It’s fucking _aragh sagi._ Ishvalan moonshine. Of course. It’d be a good thing if Hughes didn’t keel over from methanol poisoning with the amount he had just downed. Hell, it’d be the Devil’s luck if it wasn’t laced at all.

“Aw hell Riza, now we gotta take care of ‘im.” Roy grouses. 

“Well, that’s the price of friendship.” She ribs, the alcohol clearly having gotten to her.

(It reminds him of simpler times, and maybe that’s why he had suggested this activity)

“True. Couldn’t _ask_ for better friends.” He says, and even as he says it, he wants to hit himself because of _fucking_ **_Heathcliff,_ ** who had died _because_ of him, and he had been such a _stellar_ friend that time, hadn’t he?

(He’d heard it all before, slanty, chink, half-breed. 

He’d heard it all before. Mhjn, mongrel, savage.

He’d heard it all before, and he froze on that rooftop as he recalled hearing it and doing _nothing nothing nothing._ Because maybe he had it bad, but Heathcliff had it worse, and he was an _awful_ excuse for a friend.

He’d meant to say: “I’m sorry”, but then the gunshots rang out, and Maes was screaming his name and Roy was alive and Heathcliff was dead, and they were all fucking _killers_ each and every single one of them)

“True.” She says, and plants a sloppy kiss on his cheek. “Let me help.” Drunk, she was _drunk,_ he reminded himself, but he blushed like a schoolboy anyways.

He let her help, and together they carried Hughes back to base camp, where they dumped him on Knox and staggered back to their respective tents.

* * *

The year is 1915, and Roy can see again. 

He gives Riza a kiss for a kiss, and gets back to work. 

They can’t atone for their sins, won’t ever climb those steps to heaven, but the least they can do is make the road to hell a bit less bumpy.

(They find themselves entwining their fingers on a barren hill, and they sit there for a long time, hand in hand. Then she kisses him like before, like how she did back in that desolate manor, and for a moment he feels pure, he feels like he’s on **_fire_**. 

And maybe he’s never been pious, but in that moment Riza Hawkeye is his everything just as she is his undoing.)

* * *

This isn’t when the story starts.

* * *

  
  


Roy Mustang and Maes Hughes are looking for Heathcliff Erbe, ready to share an entertaining story from their Military History class with the Ishvalan. 

Riza Hawkeye puts down 100 cenz for a stamp on her letter to a certain half-Xingese alchemist and hides her blush when the lady in charge of the mail train asks if its for a beau when she notices the address on the envelope.

They’re content.

More than a hundred miles away, in the East, A girl, barely elementary school aged, runs onto a raised platform. People are screaming around her, and the soldiers in blue uniforms (blue as the calming sky) are doing their level best to quell the mob before it can escalate to violence.

A girl, on a raised platform. A man, with a handgun approaches her. 

An _Amestrian_ with a handgun. 

The gunshot echoes in the square.

The year is 1904.

This is where the story starts.


End file.
